Thursday, November 6, 2014

Online Campaign Forces Victoria's Secret To Change 'Perfect Body' Ad

Victoria's Secret, one of the most popular brands for women's bras, recently launched a new set of underwear describing the fit of the bras as "the perfect body".

However, not a few people disliked the ad as they felt it would exacerbate the insecurity that women already feel about their bodies.

The ad slogan was deemed offensive especially because all the models were tall, slim and fairly busty.

Today, those who called out Victoria's secret to change the slogan appear to have won, with the brand rephrasing the tagline for the 'Body' ads to "a body for every body."

The change.org petition that had called for Victoria's Secret to change the ads, urged them to also apologise and received over 28,000 signatures. They wrote;

"Every day women are bombarded with advertisements aimed at making them feel insecure about their bodies, in the hope that they will spend money on products that will supposedly make them happier and more beautiful.

All this does is perpetuate low self-esteem among women who are made to feel that their bodies are inadequate and unattractive because they do not fit into a narrow standard of beauty. It contributes to a culture that encourages serious health problems such as negative body image and eating disorders.

Victoria’s Secret’s new advertisements play on women's insecurities, and send out a damaging message by positioning the words 'The Perfect Body' across models who have exactly the same, very slim body type.

This marketing campaign is harmful. It fails to celebrate the amazing diversity of women’s bodies by choosing to call only one body type 'perfect'."

A smaller underwear brand Dear Kate, which aims for diversity and inclusiveness in their products, joined the campaign with their own "perfect body" ad, which featured women of all sizes. The shared the photo on their blog with the caption;

"Through this photo, we showcase women who are often neglected by the media and traditional retailers," the blog post introducing the image on the Dear Kate website writes. "We show the multitude of shapes perfect bodies can take."